Scanlan: Alfredsson proves you can go home again (with video)

For a few precious moments, the Ottawa Senators rolled back the clock.

Onto the ice stepped captain Daniel Alfredsson, his blonde hair flowing, as he skated around the Canadian Tire Centre arena he helped christen in 1996.

One last victory lap. A moment of closure between Ottawa fans – heartbroken at his departure in 2013 – and the greatest Senators player of the modern era, in what was surely the most anticipated pre-game warmup in Ottawa history.

To the strains of his longtime goal song by U2, Beautiful Day, Alfredsson skated through a phalanx of Senators players, waved his stick in a salute to fans and then fired shots at goaltender Craig Anderson. After going “top shelfie” on a wrist shot he styled it with one leg, as fans chanted his name: “Alfie!!”

And fans were in their seats early! An Ottawa first.

“I will try to not fall down,” Alfredsson had promised.

He didn’t fall down, though the fans did rise up, on their feet.

Afterward, Alfredsson said the warmup experience was “so overwhelming it’s hard to comprehend almost” and gave him “goosebumps.” The crowd fired up the competitor in him, calling it his “best skate ever,” but the wise old man in him said he’s not in shape to play a full game even if he was dying to play “a few shifts.”

In the pre-game session, all the Alfie elements were there, a group game of keepaway, one of Alfredsson’s favourite practice routines, and a stretching circle with pals Erik Karlsson and Chris Phillips. Before leaving the ice, he raised his stick with one arm, clapped his hands together in thanks, and scooted off the ice just as he arrived, between two rows of Senators players.

He returned for a ceremonial faceoff, but not before standing alone at centre ice, a moment to share with everyone in the building, and now the tears flowed. Microphone in hand, Alfredsson spoke to fans of the bond that will join them forever.

“Let’s not say goodbye,” he said. “Merci. A bientot.”

Now his family joined him at centre ice, his boys dropping the puck between Daniel and Erik Karlsson, a draw that Sweden could not lose.

Earlier in the day, Alfredsson signed a symbolic contract, allowing him to be a Senator for a day, and retire in the place he spent nearly 18 years before one season in Detroit as a Red Wing.

On the morning of a game between the Senators and New York Islanders, Alfredsson’s retirement conference was classic Alfie. Composed. Dignified. Honest. There would have been more emotion, perhaps tears, if Alfredsson hadn’t rehearsed his prepared speech so many times. He cried on the phone reading it to a friend.

Draped in the same red Senators sweater he wore in his final game with the Senators, in the spring of 2013, Alfredsson admitted that if his back had allowed him one more season, it would have been in Detroit, where he played last season.

He has no regrets about leaving in 2013, during a player-organization contractual divorce, and views the Detroit experience as another path in the road that led him back here, this day.

“It’s given me this opportunity now, to thank everyone and retire as an Ottawa Senator,” Alfredsson said “The more I thought about it, the stronger I felt it was the right thing to do.”

Senators general manager Bryan Murray was a key figure in bringing Alfredsson back home. Typically, Murray cited Alfredsson’s toughness, playing through injuries like a broken rib and broken jaw, as one of the qualities he admired most. Murray knows about toughness. He’s battling terminal cancer every day and shrugs it off to go to work.

Talking about the great leap he and his then-girlfriend Bibi took, arriving in Ottawa from Gothenburg in 1995, Alfredsson noted the passage of time this way: “We grew from youngsters into aging parents.”

At age 42 (next week), with 1,246 NHL games played and 1,157 points scored, Alfredsson is quitting, but not before making his mark in this game and this community. What the future holds for Alfredsson is not clear, beyond spending the rest of this hockey season as a devoted husband and father. It’s back to the lockout Alfie, hockey dad and coach. Alfie, helping with homework.

When he returns to the NHL – not if – he isn’t sure if he would be better suited to coaching or management, as he told Sportsnet’s Elliotte Friedman. He needs time to talk to others in the game. He also admitted he would have retired in 2007 as a Senator if Ottawa had won the Stanley Cup final against Anaheim that spring.

As much as not winning a Cup pains him, Alfredsson reflects on reaching the Cup final – the Senators returning home to adoring fans from the conference final on the strength of Alfredsson’s overtime goal − as the highlight of his career.

If this was goodbye to Alfredsson the player, it’s hello to a potential role with the Senators. The door is “wide open,’ as owner Eugene Melnyk put it. In the future, expect a night when his number 11 is retired and raised to the arena rafters, the first modern-day Senators player to be honoured in this way.

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